Free Arrow’s Flight by Mercedes Lackey

of myself enough to call for help that way, and it was impossible to be heard over the storm.”
    He was shaking like a reed in a windstorm; she put her arm around his shoulders; supplying a physical comfort as well as the mental. “But Dirk found you,” she pointed out.
    “The Gods alone know how; he had no reason to think we were still alive.” The tension was rapidly draining out of him as Talia shielded him from the phobic memories; not enough to make him forget, but enough to make them less real, less obsessive. “He got ropes around both of us and anchored us where we were; used something to divert the water away from me, and stayed with us, hanging on with his teeth and toenails, until the storm was over. Then he got blankets over us and sent Ahrodie off for help while he got me back up to the trail. I don’t remember that part at all; I must have blacked out from the pain.” His voice sounded less strained.
    The fear was nearly conquered now; time to diffuse the rest of it. “You must have looked like a drowned rat,” she replied with a hint of chuckle. “I know you have a fetish for cleanliness, but don’t you think that was overdoing it a bit?”
    He stared at her in surprise, then began to laugh, shakily. The laughter was half tears as the last of the tension was released. Hysterics—yes, but long needed.
    She held him quietly until the worst passed, and he could see past the tears to her face, childlike in the half-dark.
    The paralysis of fear that Skif had lived with on a daily basis for the past several months had all but choked the voice out of him as he tried to tell Talia what had happened that awful night. He’d suffered nightmare replays of the incident at least one night a week ever since. It had taken all of his control to repeat it to her—at least at first. But then, gradually, the words had begun to flow more freely; the fear had slowly loosed its grip on him. As he neared the end of his narrative, he began to realize what Talia had done.
    It was gratitude as much as release that shook the tears from him then.
    “You—you did it to me, didn’t you—fixed me like you did with Vostel and the rest of them—?”
    “Mm-hm,” she nodded, touching his hair in the dark. “I didn’t think you’d mind.”
    “No more nightmares?”
    “No more nightmares, big brother. You won’t find yourself wanting to hide in a closet during storms anymore, and you’ll be able to look down over cliffs again. In fact, you’ll even be able to tell the story in a week or two without shaking like a day-old chick, and it should make a good tale to earn the sympathy of a pretty lady with!”
    “You—you’re unbelievable,” he said at last, holding her tightly.
    “So are you, to have been coping with all that fear all this time, and not letting it get the best of you.”
    They sat that way for some time, before the murmur of voices below them recalled them to their surroundings.
    “Hellfire! This is supposed to be a party, and you’re supposed to be enjoying it,” Skif said at last.
    “I am, now that you’re all right.” She rose to her feet, and gave him a hand up. “Well, I’m going back to the singing, and it seems to me that your year-mate Mavry is looking a bit lonely.”
    “Hm. So she is,” he replied, peering down into the lighted area. “Think I’ll go keep her company. And—heart-sister—”
    “No thanks needed, love.”
    He kissed her forehead by way of reply, then skipped lightly down the stairs of the loft and took himself off to the other side of the room, where Mavry willingly made a space for him beside her.
    Talia rejoined the musicians just in time for Dirk to claim her for another duet. She had to plead a dry throat before they’d let someone else take the floor.
    She didn’t notice the passing of time until she caught herself yawning hard enough to split her head in half. When she tried to reckon up how much time had passed, she was shocked.
    Thinking she surely must